“Unfortunately, everyday speech is rife with disempowering language,” Stanford professor Bernard Roth tells Fast Company. This week, we learned Roth’s approach to replacing certain common expressions for others in order to generate more positive behavior—best of all, pretty much right away.

Speaking coach Joan Detz says one thing that master public speakers know how to do is nail the first and last 30 seconds of their talks. Here’s more on that plus six other tips to transform your next presentation.

Multitaskers are hooked on instant gratification. And according to one expert, we pay the price for that addiction in the form of “attention residue,” the cognitive cost of constantly switching from one task to the next.

Risk takers aren’t careless. It turns out that those who fling themselves into high-stakes situations usually only do so after obsessing over the details first. Here’s a look at why risk taking is much more of a process than the impulse many of us imagine it to be.